Trouble follows acceptance of an offer that seemed too good to refuse.

Having survived the ‘worst period’ in his career hospitality manager John never envisaged he would leave his job in the way he did.

John held on to his job after the first lockdown brought work to a complete standstill and a number of colleagues were dismissed by way of redundancy.

When all restrictions were eventually lifted, John was offered a new job with a higher salary with a different employer, accepted it, and told his employer of five years of his intention to leave.

The new employer wanted John to start work quickly, so he asked if he could cut short his one-month notice period.

However, his current employer made it clear it wished to keep him and offered a pay rise. It was too good of an offer to refuse, John accepted and agreed to stay in his role.

But a little over two months later he was summoned to his manager’s office and left speechless by the discussion that took place.

John was informed due to financial difficulties that the business was facing he and colleagues would have to accept a wage cut.

He was handed what was said to be a new contract of employment and asked to read and sign it before he left the office.

Shocked John refused to sign the contract, and was effectively told to sign it or else.

He was reminded about an accident in which a colleague was injured at a work event he had organised five months earlier.

John pointed out he was cleared of any wrongdoing at the time. However, his manager said new evidence had recently become known so it was being looked at again.

Stunned John refused to sign the new contract, left the office and called in sick the following morning.

Later that afternoon he received an email inviting him to a disciplinary hearing to face a number of allegations regarding health and safety breaches.

John immediately contacted our Employee Support Centre and discussed his case with our representative.

Understandably John was fuming about the way he had been treated, which he felt was grossly unfair. Our representative agreed with him.

This led John to raise a grievance with his employer about the unfavourable treatment he had been subjected to.

The employer refused to accept John had a grievance and said it was mitigation in the disciplinary case.

Despite the best efforts of our representative, the employer refused to change its stance.

The employer did eventually agree to hear what it labelled ‘John’s concerns’ prior to the disciplinary hearing.

John first raised the grievance because he felt badly mistreated and just wanted to continue to work without unreasonable changes to his contract.

However, prior to the disciplinary hearing he had contact on LinkedIn with the employer who had previously offered him the job he had accepted before opting to remain where he was.

The person who took the job instead of John had left. He was offered the role again and readily accepted it.

So, prior to the disciplinary hearing John just wanted to ensure he could leave without being sacked and get a guarantee of a reference.

During the discussion at the start of the meeting about ‘John’s ‘concerns,’ our representative detailed the unfairness in the employer attempting to enforce contract changes in an unreasonable, bullying and intimidatory manner with the use of a sham disciplinary process to force John to accept unfavourable terms or dismiss him to save money.

Our representative aware John wanted to leave and take up the new job, initiated a discussion about a settlement agreement after discussing and detailing ‘John’s concerns,’ and prior to the start of the disciplinary hearing which was to follow it.

The HR manager was keen to have the conversation about a settlement, and even had details of an offer which she presented to John.

It was one of those extraordinarily rare offers where for only the second time during more than a decade of our representative being in his role, the offer was actually higher than what John actually wanted.

He readily accepted it on terms he was absolutely delighted with.

John left without facing disciplinary action and with a guarantee of a reference.